Archive for January 15, 2013

Politico’s Dylan Byers makes a big deal about Jeff Zucker backing Piers Morgan having an opinion at a CNN Town Hall today…

Today’s meeting in New York was attended by at least 600 staffers, sources said. One described Zucker’s support for Morgan’s taking a position as “clear and unequivocal.”

And why wouldn’t he? Look, I’ve been slagging Zucker since his name first got put in the mix for CNN gig and my positions and stance (read: fear) of a Zucker CNN Presidency is still as great now as it was then. Zucker must prove to me by his actions that my fears are unfounded before I’ll change my opinion.

But on this issue Zucker has it 100% right. It’s not only right, it’s a total no-brainer. I’ve been saying for a long time now that Piers Morgan needs to start asserting himself more and match his polarizing (and very entertaining) Twitter feed. I don’t think Gun Control is the panacea that will achieve that goal. At best, it’s a short term issue, mileage wise, for him. But the point is Morgan is putting some stick about and causing commotion. You need to do that in cable news primetime. I think Zucker recognizes this and only a fool would throttle Morgan at this point. Provided that Morgan doesn’t go overboard to the point that he winds up with egg on his face…and, no, getting gun advocates ridiculing him doesn’t qualify…Zucker should back him.

But, all that said, this is a total non-story and probably the least interesting detail that could have emerged from this town hall. I would be a lot more interested in what else Zucker had to say, particularly if it touched the direction he’s planning on taking CNN. That would have far more impact on CNN as a whole than Zucker letting Morgan run with his gun control topic.

Breitbart.com has an uncredited story about the attempts by Piers Morgan tonight staffers to set up a rematch between Morgan and Ben Shapiro… ( via J$ )

But when it came time to book the show, Morgan’s team refused to tell Shapiro what the format of the show would be. When Shapiro said that he expected balance — a second one-on-one interview with Morgan — Morgan’s producers balked. They did insist strongly, however, that Shapiro appear on the show, where he would be “in for the entire show” and “have a huge part.” When Shapiro again reiterated that balance would be a one-on-one, and asked for more details on what his role would be, Morgan’s producers went silent.

“This is how the left manipulates media situations to ambush conservatives,” Shapiro said. “Piers and I had a good conversation last week about gun control; if he wants a rematch, I’m always game.”

Radar Online’s Jen Heger writes about Matt Layer allegedly intervening on behalf of Ann Curry to supposedly get her out of her NBC contract so that Jeff Zucker can allegedly bring her to CNN and put her on prime time where I believe she will almost certainly fail…

MediaPost’s Wayne Friedman writes about a new Nielsen report on TV viewing habits…

Nielsen, in a new Cross-Platform Report release, says 5% of viewing happens beyond seven days of time-shifting (up to 28 days) for the top ten shows. Much of this does occur with special interest TV shows — like science fiction.

But looking at overall TV viewing beyond seven days for all programs, much of this viewing is negligible: Broadcast TV tallies 1.1% viewing beyond seven days; for cable TV programs this comes to 0.6% beyond seven days; and syndication is at 0.3%.